Fourteen years old, Toonstruck has dated in some respects, primarily the scan-line FMV. But being cartoon, in others it remains as lovely today. The main trouble is how hard it is to get to run, requiring DosBox with special instructions, or Virtual Machine. Or better yet, and I’m increasingly tempted to do this, building a box out of ancient PC parts and installing Win 95 on it. Like Day Of The Tentacle, as I played it for Eurogamer I couldn’t help but take screenshots of everything. Below are but some of them. (You can have fun giving yourself a seizure by scrolling the first few images and watching them strobe.)

Tut and dirty journalism, sir! Allow me to straighten you out with an uplifting moral tale from my own childhood.

So the Command and Conquer demo has given my very young self a taste of real time fever, and I liked it. I manage to get the full game, but I am upset by my slow progress through the GDI campaign – the demo let me use orcas and mammoth tanks on the second mission, and I liked it that way.

I discover that the mission is some 10 scenarios in. But I have had a weird plan. I load up the demo and play the first mission, then save my game on the map I loved. I import that save into the main game, and imagine my surprise when it actually worked. I believe myself to be a master hacker, and hasten to tell my loving father of the incredibly clever computer cheat I have done (DOS, remember).

“Father, father!” says I.

“Yes, my favouritest of sons?” Says he.

“I have copied a save game file from a demo into the main game, allowing me to skip a whole bunch of levels! You may lavish praise upon me, if you wish.”

“Hmm.” hums he.

“Hmm?” I also hum, but changing in pitch.

“So you have paid all that money for a game just to try and not play some of it?”

My world shatters. I am not a master hacker. I am a dirty cheater. I vow never to do it again.

I get that temptation to build a machine out of old hardware whenever I try to reinstall System Shock 2 or any of the DarkEngine games. Could probably do it on the cheap, too, since my old man has boxes and boxes of hopelessly outdated components and fifteen million Win98 licenses.

Sounds like a slightly ignorant position to not play the game because of the principles the man holds. It won’t affect the fortunes of the game, you’ll just deprive yourself of the experience. Unless you have an actual adverse physical reaction on the sight of him, which would be an interesting thing to watch.